Planning Your Flight

While many of us ‘work’ on our flights, computer out, balancing the food, avoiding our seatmate, watching a movie… how about a different plan? Plan your time in terms of outcomes and not tasks or objectives or deadlines. At the end of the flight what are the outcomes that would make you proud of time well used? I’ve been experimenting recently going from a ‘to do’ list to an outcome list.  My ‘to do’ list is the same one on the ground. My outcome list is framed as ‘What will make this flight more?”  And the ‘more’ is about balancing the opportunities that the flight has for me. It has time to speak to the crew. After the meal service I hit the galley and thank them and ask how long they’ve been flying…great conversations ensue. I’m also practicing my paraphrasing which comes in very handy when I’m on the ground with clients. I also take some quiet meditative time, usually on take-off, sometimes I’m not even aware of the take-off itself! How many times on the ground do I take those moments? I’m respectfully aware of my seatmate and test out a conversation during a meal or even on the descent. More interpersonal practice and sometimes a contact worth meeting. Work bits are there too but monitor their outcomes also. Too much work and we are likely to be drained on touchdown. Clients need us to flow with them and their needs and not come in riddled with pace and anxiety.

Don’t Leave, Sit a Spell

Do you move on quickly from a KOL visit? Here is an idea. Go back to the waiting room, tell the receptionist you have some things to do before your next appointment (so it won’t look creepy that you are still there!) And then just for a few minutes pay attention to the patients and their families coming in and sitting among you. Observe, listen, wait a bit more, listen some more…turn up your empathy scale. These are the people you and your KOL were just talking about. What will it be like for them on this visit? What fears will they have? What good news? These are your folks too!

Feeding Back Feedback

When you come across some vital information from your KOL, AdBoards, or Congress meetings it’s natural to feed the information up and across the chain. How about though those side comments your physician or researcher makes almost as throw away thoughts. The ones that often begin with “It would be nice wouldn’t it if we could…” or “I was dreaming of a day when…” or “I had a rep in here the other day who mentioned…” or even “One of my patients had an interesting comment…” These can easily be non-remembered thoughts that never makes it up or across the chain, especially if we are on our own mission to say what we want to say! I’m often reminded of a friend who was highly successful with his mantra, “On the first visit, I know nothing! I let the client tell me. Come to think about it, every visit is a first visit!”

Patient Experience Scores with a Little Patience

The May/June issue of the Journal of Healthcare Management has an article titled, “The Impact of Chaplaincy Departments on Hospital Patient Experience Scores.” The findings speak to patient HCAHPS ratings as higher including the more likely to recommend ratings. One notable finding was, in addition to the direct patient experience, chaplaincy also indirectly provided staff helping with their own well-being. Our work at Loyola University of Chicago’s Institute of Pastoral Studies in training chaplains reminds us to keep alert and aware of their patients and also the fellow professionals on our way through the halls. Major airports and the military have chaplains as well. They do their work with intentional presence, eye contact, listening, never giving advice, and thoughtful patient awareness. Though many of us are not professional chaplains, we too can be alert and aware noticing what might be happening for our fellow MSLs, KOLs, and their staff: you can make “chaplain-like” responses too, yes?

I Know You Are, But Who Am I?

We are all different as many of our HR people remind us. The DISC (and the ancient Greeks) tells us there are four personality types. And then there is one assessment touting six, another eight, and yes, the MBTI came up with 16! And no matter how detailed and fancy the assessments are, all trainers and corporate educators seem to end with some sort of “while I don’t expect all of you to remember all we did today, I do suggest that you alert yourself to our differences and appreciate them next time.” This is because they know that retaining all of this is not going to happen. The most we can hope for is that it will expand our appreciation, provide an option or two when things get hot, and might help us finally figure out our boss! As you work with your team and with your KOLs don’t kill yourself to predict or diagnose rather work to connect and engage.

Reminding Me with Every Appointment

With every flight I take, every dentist appointment, every reservation I’ve made at my favorite vegan restaurant, every appointment with my trainer and more, I get an auto-reminder. And I am happy for them. The more personalized, better. My trainer adds that she looks forward to seeing me again or reminds me of something personal we spoke about last time. Would that help with your KOL? Or with their receptionist by name? Just a way to not only remind them of your upcoming visit, but to show that your appointment is more than just a slot on your calendar. Might be good to remind yourself of that too! And remember Carnegie’s ongoing wisdom that there is one word in every language that is sweet to the ear…our name. Note and use names not in an artificial (or overtly salesy) way but in a genuine, “I remember you” way.

Me? A KOL?

Have you ever been a KOL of sorts? Maybe at your neighborhood picnic? Are you a favorite aunt or uncle? Or perhaps you are seen by your MSL team as the one who knows! Think back; it’s probably in your life sometime, the KOL in you. Ponder it for a moment: how do you or did you feel about your moments in the KOL spotlight? Who approached you as you wanted to be approached? Who gave you a deserved but not fawning kind of recognition? While we are all different, perhaps notice how your KOL likes to be regarded as special. It might not be your way, but it is their way.

What’s In a Car?

What’s In a Car? How clean is your office? I mean, your traveling office, your car! Having a traveling office can dirty up a car fast… on the inside. Not so much only full of papers, wrappers, and tissues, but also the little stuff stuck under your seat. Whenever I take Lyft or Uber, my first thought is: how clean is this car? When I compliment the driver on it I invariably hear, “I have to clean it every day, sometimes twice.” One Lyft driver said, “I do it for my customers and I do it for me because I want to keep my attitude right.” Take a look at your car, under the seat, on the dashboard, even the trunk. You deserve a clean car and your KOLs deserve your right attitude!

No Time for Lunch…or Too Much Time!

How do you catch your lunch? Fast food, “Good Food Quickly,” pizza slices again? How about making your lunch stops planned as much as your KOL stops? And what if you experimented and made time for a mom-and-pop shop lunch or coffee places? Or bring your own and surprise yourself with where you will enjoy it. A park, the zoo, a quick moment bowling a lane or two. It can help you get out of an unsatisfying routine, and it might even give you something to talk about! Make your day not one full of appointments but rather full of exploration, both professional and personal. Where is your favorite place?

I remember this one day when...

If you’ve been to a therapist, some will ask for an early memory, some for a typical day as a child (or as an adult), and some understanding of how we see life. It comes out in some form of the following beliefs:

• Life is _____

• People are ______

• I am _________

• Therefore, I must ________

These techniques are a way into the part of ourselves that is on autopilot… How we see life, others, self, the task ahead. Some of us have had terrific childhoods where we learned to enjoy life, to trust others, and to be self-confident as we enter the world of work, love, and friendship. Some of us had a tougher childhood where we learned early and often that life is not fair, that people, even family, are not so nice, and that we had to prepare for the worst of life coming at us with a distrust of others, and the must is about heading aggressively into life or shrinking from it. The therapist’s job is to listen and try with us to unearth these hidden convictions that might rest just below our awareness but nonetheless account for our beliefs and actions. The psychiatrist Rudolf Dreikurs (and later the program “Empowering People in the Workplace”) suggested that we have an imaginative magic wand in his therapy sessions. “Go back to that early recollection,” he might say, “and you now have a magic wand. What do you want to change about that early memory or typical day?”

What happens frequently is a different set of beliefs:

• Life is _____

• People are ______

• I am _________

• Therefore, I CAN ________

Some of us have a magic wand in our daily life that can transform us from our musts to our cans. A powerful wand indeed. Some of us are unaware of its power. 

(For more information: https://www.positivediscipline.org/Empowering-People-in-the-Workplace)

Insights from a PharmD & an Executive Coach. What are YOUR ideas about the art of being an impactful MSL? Please repost if your network would find this useful. We’ve only scratched the surface, join our LinkedIn MSL community for more: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14462043/ and join our mailing list to receive the complete tip series delivered right to your inbox: http://eepurl.com/iYHNjY

No Time for Lunch…or Too Much Time!

How do you catch your lunch? Fast food, “Good Food Quickly,” pizza slices again? How about making your lunch stops planned as much as your KOL stops? And what if you experimented and made time for a mom-and-pop shop lunch or coffee places? Or bring your own and surprise yourself with where you will enjoy it. A park, the zoo, a quick moment bowling a lane or two. It can help you get out of an unsatisfying routine, and it might even give you something to talk about! Make your day not one full of appointments but rather full of exploration, both professional and personal. Where is your favorite place?

Fate or Faith.

When you get discouraged or lose an account or a job, consider not what happened to you but rather consider your skills, not your fate. What are you best at? And how did you show up regardless of what they thought? How can you use your adaptability at this moment of time? How did you get through tough times before? It is so easy to find yourself in a pit of someone else’s making and begin to sit and stare at the sunlight disappearing. Instead of using a shovel to go deeper, use the shovel to carve out steps. Your shovel is your tool of talents. When we let others define us, even in our grandest successes, we are unknowingly setting ourselves up to be unaware of what got us there. It requires that we have faith in ourselves as others have in us.

Write Every Day Even When You Don’t Know What to Say

A young Jerry Seinfeld interviewed a much older comedian George Burns about how he came up with new material. “My team of writers and I meet for two hours a day and write.” It seemed to dawn on Seinfeld that comedy is written and worked on, it is not waiting for a spontaneous chuckle to emerge. Some comedians work for years on a “bit” to make sure that it works the way they want it to. Jay Leno said the secret to all comedy is in the editing: less is more. My sister wrote 70 books, not of comedy though some were fun, and she told me she wrote for four hours a day even on days when she had nothing to write! As an MSL, I’m going to suggest you do the same thing. Write every day, maybe not for four hours, and not with a team of writers, but every day. And what to write? Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Define your job for a bright ten-year-old… Challenge yourself with a five-year-old.

• Tell us about your favorite grad school or professional schoolteacher. Challenge yourself to speak about the worst one with charity in your words.

• How would you run the company you now work for? Challenge yourself with your last boss or company without any resentment.

• Write some opening paragraphs that will engage your KOL. Challenge yourself to answer back as the physician who loves or hates these encounters with you.

• Write your career path even if being a forest ranger is not in the cards right now. Challenge yourself by writing about what you really, really want to do with your life.

It is in the writing that you can be thinking and in the thinking, you will become a more adept listener and storyteller…and listener! One of my doctor friends, an intensely smart person, drops me stories written on his phone. Some long, some short. All somewhat emotional and engaging. Plenty of stories. You have plenty too.

Weathermen and Suits (and glasses!)

Lee Goldberg is the ABC meteorologist in New York and a frequent contributor to ABC World News Tonight with David Muir. If you happen to catch his reporting, he has many distinct things about him that make him, well, distinct! He is immaculately dressed to the 9’s. Different each time but completely put together. His glasses often change too and of course are perfectly paired to the wardrobe. And he reports outside. Who could have thought? A weatherman outside! So what? Well, in a world of reporters, weather and otherwise, he is a distinctive statement. He doesn’t make a statement, he is one. He is his own trademark. And a memorable one at that. And then there’s his smile. He signs on with one and signs off with one. He seems like that guy next door who is nice and seems to have his act together all the time… And is so nice! Makes me wonder when I look in the mirror for a big presentation or meeting, am I distinctive? Is there something memorable about how I look? Am I memorable?

Hope Is Not a Strategy—But It's Still Essential

I gave my wife an orchid five years ago. Did I say 5? Yes! It bloomed once and then just sat there for the next five years. We watered it a bit and we actually forgot about it most of the time. Well, this year it decided to reward us for our passiveness! I wondered what took it so long, what it was thinking, why it was waiting, did we make it suffer… You know, the usual unanswerable questions of life! Now the obvious meaning here is that it is OK to wait, all good things will come to pass in the right time, don’t hurry nature, etc. And I suppose all of that is true. But the first thing I thought of after my guilt of neglect was gratitude that this little thing didn’t give up on itself. And then the stories started to flood me of people who didn’t give up on themselves. The hero’s journey of sorts. Whenever I meet a PharmD or an MD or a PhD or RN or DNP (or a machine shop operator, teacher, tinker, tailor, soldier, spy) I ask this question: “Was it difficult?” And usually as if by some cosmic thing that unites them, they almost always take a step back to think about it, as if they had never given it much thought. And out comes wisdom and a conversation and a moment of nostalgic connection to a most important part of their life. When they bloomed. How about you?

I Sure Hope So!

Have you ever said that when asked how your next appointment is going to go? Or perhaps you say it silently entering a physician’s office who has a reputation for dining on MSLs! Hope is not a childhood wish. Hope is nothing to be ashamed of. Hope is a good thing. Of course, you’ll frequently hear (perhaps from your manager) the book title, “Hope is not a strategy!” And hope will not replace a strategy. However, it is a fundamental human emotion of optimism. It indicates a desire and a belief. However, it is often disparaged, so it is likely better as a private emotion rather than an answer to your manager. Someone once said, those who live with hope live differently than those without. Hope, like faith in yourself, is that quiet emotion that steadies us, gives us confidence, and becomes our inner emotional friend during difficult times. Those of you who were gymnasts as a child, how did you do that first successful backflip? Those of you who learned another language for your vacation or mission trip, how did you decide to just have the courage to say it in that language? Yes, these kinds of activities are built on skills, they are also built on our inner emotional life. It’s OK to hope and have faith in yourself. As I tell scientific presenters who are nervous before a big speech, “You know what you are going to say, they don’t. They want you to do well for their sake, and frankly after the first two sentences it is in the hands of a greater power than you!” Have hope and live differently.

Engaging the distracted decision-maker

I went to a funeral recently—a full house, standing room only. The eulogist took the podium silently, looked down at his notes, looked up at us, even scanned the crowd right to left and back again, down to his notes, then looked up and continued the story he started in silence.

His silent ascent to the podium and the silence continuing could not have been more than a minute or two, but it seemed longer—more reverent, more inclusive. And guess what? The crowd was completely silent. We were ready to hear what he had to say.

You can employ this too.

When I’m with a decision maker—an important person—and they’re looking at their screen, their phone, off in the distance, I simply say, “I’m OK, do you need to answer that?” or “Need to get that email off?” Or I put out a blank piece of 8.5x11 paper and I start drawing on it… usually geometric shapes, a Venn diagram, etc.

I do so slowly. This catches their attention and both of us are now looking down at the paper, and I have a collaborator instead of a judge or an impassive physician staring at PowerPoint slides.

The Venn diagram is a good one because the three interlocking circles create that middle circle. That middle circle need not have a name or anything on it. It often houses the future success or the critical question or the thing that we are researching. And of course, our distracted doctor is now looking at our material—our on-the-spot made material—not the company’s brochures (yet).

Use pauses to make sure that you are giving your physician time to take it all in, to think, and to respond. Coaches use W.A.I.T. as their professional mantra: Why Am I Talking?! You can too.

Slow your speech, allow for pauses, note overt and subtle physician interest (leaning forward, asking questions, brighter eyes, head nodding, guttural sounds, etc.). Like in The Princess Bride, “You let me in, prepare to be engaged!”

“You killed my father, prepare to die.”

“You killed my father, prepare to die.” Remember that line from the movie The Princess Bride? Mandy Patinkin was the actor. He is also an accomplished singer as well.

On The David Letterman Show one night, he was publicizing his latest album. Letterman said words to the effect that he knew this was an unusual request, but “would you sing this one?” and pointed to the back of the album cover. Mandy seemed surprised, as did the band. And then they did a drop-dead rendition of “Over the Rainbow” seemingly off the cuff.

Now, few things—very few things—on late night TV are spontaneous and unrehearsed, and I have no inner knowledge of this event. But it kept my interest. The persistent “what is going to happen?” thoughts in my head and the resulting song in a near-perfect “spontaneous” performance…

Moments like this, a do-or-die Masters golf shot, a rocket launch, your child’s first steps, a new Key Opinion Leader (!), are all moments of some anticipation if not suspense.

You can use this technique yourself. It is less of a technique and more of an awareness of the anticipation of the other.

In my next post, I’ll share a striking real-life example—and how you can channel this principle to engage the toughest audiences.

Introvert or extrovert: it's not who you are, it's how you prepare

Going from office to office, making those cold calls, initiating conversation with a new Key Opinion Leader (KOL), and of course socializing on those ever-fun ride-along days… While these are often the breakfast of champions for the extroverts on the team, they can be a real ache for us introverts. Often misunderstood, the introvert/extrovert labels are simply how we get our energy: introverts charge their batteries while alone and feel them slowly deplete over the course of the day while extroverts charge just by being around others are a bit drained when alone.

Shyness and anxiety have been associated with introversion, but extroverts feel those same emotions. Each person handles it in a different way. Some introverts hang back and wait for the other person to engage them (not always a winning strategy with your manager, or your career!). Extroverts, on the other hand, handle those same emotions with over-talking, silly talking, and yes, just talking! Again, when our job is to seek out the other person, we need not relay our life stories.

Anxiety is often an ambiguous feeling (“I’ve heard there are bears in the area”), whereas fear is more direct (“Look! A bear!”). Nervousness is a focus on the wondering what will or could happen, or am I ready, or do they know how nervous I am?

The cure for all of this is to look outward, to engage, to listen, and then listen a bit more. Introverts are exceptional at listening when they disengage from the fear. Extroverts are great listeners when they focus on the story of the other vs. how it reminds them of themselves!

One psychological technique that can be useful for both is to prepare with the following:

1.   I know this about this KOL and their practice_________.
2.   My hunch is that this KOL may ask me ____________.
3.   I know that I know ____________.
4.   Therefore I (*must) __________.

*Now here is the trick…switch the final #4 from “I must….” to “I can….”

When you can, you have an endless supply of encouraging actions you can take. When we go into a meeting with “I must,” we are usually confining ourselves unnecessarily to a defensive posture with few alternatives.

Don’t concern yourself with whichever personality trait you have. Instead, focus on the target, the KOL who is giving you the time to be useful to them and to the patients under their care.

Are you nervous? Or excited?

Being apprehensive when approaching a new Key Opinion Leader physician and researcher is understandable. You are walking into their territory, their questions, their time. This apprehension can give way to fear, nervousness, and doubt. It’s natural. If you have been following the series “The Pitt,” you can probably identify with the new medical students and even the residents. What is coming through the door next? Who is next? What decision do I need to make now? Am I ready? Even the attending in charge has some harboring doubts and mistakes are made now and then. A surgeon friend of mine told me that what characterizes the operating thinking of a surgeon is “Regardless of what comes my way today, I know I can fix it.” He went on to say that most surgeons in his experience love surgery because they are excited to fix and heal. “I know I can make this life better.” This is confidence steels them for the unknown, the unexpected.

So, as Medical Science Liaisons, are you nervous or are you excited? Nervous is about you… Excited is about them. Do I want my surgeon nervous or do I want her excited to fix me? One video ad for an east coast hospital had a surgeon greeting his patient early in the morning with “Nervous about today’s operation?” The patient responded, “Actually, yes I am.” The surgeon responded, “Good, ‘cause I’m not!” They both shared a reassuring laugh. Nervous is OK… Just translate it to excited at first blush. You are there for that doctor and her patients, she is not there for you. She wants to see excitement on your face and in your words. This visit is not a final oral grad school exam… It is a conversation of social equals figuring out how to heal others in their care.